


hallelujah

by vtforpedro



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Gellert Grindelwald Being Creepy, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, POV Original Percival Graves, Unhealthy Relationships, with grindelwald that is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24649552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtforpedro/pseuds/vtforpedro
Summary: In which Percival Graves meets Credence Barebone and will realize too late the danger that awaits them both.
Relationships: Credence Barebone/Original Percival Graves, Credence Barebone/Percival Graves | Gellert Grindelwald
Comments: 15
Kudos: 49





	hallelujah

The first time Percival Graves meets Credence Barebone is by accident.  
  
He’s walking to MACUSA, about to round a corner, when someone else sprints around it and hits him. Despite the fact that they’re about the same height, it’s the boy that is knocked backward, falling onto the ground at Graves’ feet. And he has a sharp rebuke on the tip of his tongue, for the boy to watch where he’s going, but he gets a look at his face and pauses.  
  
He’s pale, eyes wide with fear, with hurt, and a smear of blood is on his bottom lip. He’s no boy, though he is still young.  
  
Graves stares at him before he looks up as two others come running around the corner. They’re shorter, just teenagers, but they’re burly and mean and Graves sees the blood on one of their fists. They freeze as they see him and he stares back at them, until they turn tail and run back the way they came.  
  
When he offers his hand, the man takes it hesitantly, getting to his feet, his shoulders hunched, avoiding Graves’ eye.  
  
“It’s okay to fight back,” Graves says.  
  
“I don’t like fighting, sir,” the man says, his voice too soft, too soft for this city.  
  
But recognizable. Recognizable in the hurt that’s carried in it, the pain, the damage.  
  
But Graves knows most people in this city are damaged.  
  
“Then learn to run a little faster,” he says and continues to MACUSA, because he has a meeting with the Court.  
  
  
  
The second time he meets Credence Barebone is by chance.  
  
He’s leaving the bar after a round of drinks with Fontaine and his Captain has already Apparated home. Graves is about to, walking to his favorite alley to do so, when he hears someone crying.  
  
Not altogether unusual, in New York’s alleyways, but there’s something familiar in it, in the softness.  
  
So Graves walks into the alley and sees the man sitting down and leaning against the wall, his head between his knees.  
  
“You’re hurt.”  
  
The man startles violently, gasping as he leaps up and staggers backwards. He looks behind him but there is nowhere to go, only a solid brick wall, and it seems to take him a moment to even recognize Graves.  
  
“I’m not,” he denies as he wipes his tears away and doesn’t seem to realize he has only wiped blood on to his cheeks.  
  
Graves steps closer and holds up his hands as the man backs further away. He pulls out his handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and holds it out. “That blood isn’t hard to see.”  
  
It takes a while for him to let Graves approach and when he does, he shushes him as he turns his head away when Graves begins to wipe the blood before it can dry. He cups the man’s jaw in his hand and looks over his face before he takes up one of his hands and looks at the welts on it, one of them cracked open and leaking blood.  
  
“Those boys?” Graves asks as he gently wipes the blood away and uses just enough magic to stop the blood and ease the pain.  
  
The man shakes his head and Graves stares at him for a while.  
  
From home then.  
  
“What’s your name?” Graves asks.  
  
He still won’t meet Graves’ eye, sniffling and hanging his head. “Credence Barebone, sir.”  
  
“Credence,” Graves repeats. “Let me walk you home.”  
  
Credence shakes his head quickly. “I can’t go home,” he says. “Not until morning.”  
  
Graves thinks he can figure out the reason why and his nose twitches with annoyance. No-majs often disgust him, and whoever is at home waiting for Credence disgusts him, but it’s a familiar, more personal hatred in his heart.  
  
He knows that coming home during the daylight hours means the possibility of a less harsh punishment.  
  
“You can’t sleep out on the street,” he says. “It’s not safe.”  
  
Credence merely shrugs. “I’ve done it before.”  
  
“I have an extra bed,” Graves says. “Use it.”  
  
“Oh… no, thank you, sir. I don’t want to be a burden.”  
  
“It’s more of a burden on me having to worry about you all night.”  
  
Credence looks at him then, still fearful, perhaps fearing Graves himself, the unknown of what he offers him, the potential to lead him to further pain, to further harm. So Graves doesn’t push him but he’s still relieved when Credence nods jerkily.  
  
It says something, that he’d rather trust a stranger than go home.  
  
Graves walks to his apartment building, not a walk he’d normally like to take, but it’s early spring and the air is fresh, if a bit cold. Credence walks alongside him and they don’t speak, not until Graves opens his apartment door sometime later and shows Credence in.  
  
Credence looks overwhelmed as he gazes around and Graves takes note of the poor quality of his clothes, the thinness of Credence himself, and knows this is one way he cannot relate to Credence Barebone.  
  
“This way,” Graves says as he leads Credence down the hallway. He closes and locks his office, but shows Credence the bathroom so he can clean himself up. “The room across from here is a guest bedroom. Feel free to make yourself comfortable. Do you need anything else?”  
  
Credence shakes his head. “No, thank you, sir.”  
  
“Percival Graves.”  
  
“Mister Graves,” Credence says and sighs, and it almost sounds like relief. “Thank you.”  
  
Credence will wake him in the morning, not by calling for him or wandering throughout the apartment, but with the gentle opening and closing of the front door. And Graves will check on the guest bedroom, so neat and tidy, and wonder if he slept at all.  
  
But perhaps the morning light will help to chase away any demons he has waiting for him at home.  
  
  
  
The third time he sees Credence is with an unexpected and unwelcome surprise.  
  
Graves is walking to MACUSA and sees the Second Salemers Church is gathered by the entrance to the building, instantly angering him, because everyone in MACUSA knows how he feels about these no-majs.  
  
He shakes his head as he walks by them and up to the doorman. “Get them the fuck out of here before I do it myself,” he mutters as he looks back at the group.  
  
There’s a woman giving some sort of speech about witches but Graves pauses, because, though he is hunched over, he recognizes Credence Barebone, handing out leaflets to anyone walking by. Most ignore him.  
  
It angers Graves, enough so that he leaves the doorman behind and approaches the group. “I hope you realize that it is against the law to loiter here,” he announces loudly.  
  
Most people quickly disperse, but the woman looks at him, eyes stony and cold. Credence looks at him too, shock on his face and the ever present fear as well.  
  
“Sir, do you have a moment to—”  
  
“I most certainly do not,” Graves says to who he assumes is Miss Barebone. “I suggest you move along and find somewhere else to harass New Yorkers on their way to work.”  
  
She smiles at him, something predatory in it, and he smiles back, because he’s far more used to this game than she is.  
  
“Credence,” she says softly and Graves doesn’t miss the way Credence flinches. “Bring this man a leaflet. Perhaps we can open his mind.”  
  
Credence looks like he may be sick, but he approaches and hands Graves a leaflet, trembling, and Graves sees a fresh welt on his palm as he takes it.  
  
“Your son, ma’am?”  
  
“He is,” Barebone says. “A good, Christian boy.”  
  
Graves smiles again. “I’m sure he is,” he says. “Good day, ma’am.”  
  
Miss Barebone nods graciously and begins to walk away, two young girls appearing at her sides. When she is far enough away and Credence begins to follow, Graves reaches out to touch his wrist.  
  
“That alley again, Credence. Tomorrow morning, at eight.”  
  
Credence nods and keeps walking.  
  
Graves watches him go until he’s out of sight and enters MACUSA to start his day tracking down the real threats to this city.  
  
  
  
When Graves walks into the alley in the morning, Credence is there waiting for him, head bowed and his arms wrapped around his shoulders. Graves approaches him and Credence looks up and Graves is ready to go on a rampage, to hunt down those that put that fear in his eyes.  
  
He puts his hands on Credence’s shoulder and merely looks at him until Credence steadily relaxes and eventually leans forward, resting against Graves’ chest, his head on his shoulder.  
  
“Why don’t you leave?”  
  
“My sister. She’s too young to leave with me. Ma would get her back.”  
  
Graves knows he could finesse his way through the no-maj legal system, but he doesn’t trust child protective services to not make it more traumatizing for the Barebones than it already is. Credence is an adult, but his sister would be lost in the system, because Credence cannot take care of her with what he suspects is no education and no job.  
  
Graves can’t take care of them because they’re no-majs.  
  
But it doesn’t mean he can’t look out for Credence.  
  
“Come to me, when you need help,” he says into Credence’s ear and feels him shiver. “Don’t be afraid to.”  
  
Credence looks at him then, tears shining in the corners of his eyes and Graves cups his cheeks and wipes them away with his thumbs. “You are so much more than what she has told you you are. You have power, Credence. Don’t forget it.”  
  
He brushes his lips against Credence’s forehead and walks away, because MACUSA will always call first.  
  
  
  
A week later, there will be a report of an attack on New York City unlike any other. Graves knows it, studied it in Ilvermorny out of curiosity, the way he studied most things. It’s an Obscurial, exceedingly rare, but powerful. Incredibly powerful.  
  
He gives orders to kill them, if they cannot contain them, because the lives of wizardkind and no-majs alike are more important than one child who may be too lost to save.  
  
He still sends out Aurors to try and track them down nonetheless.  
  
  
  
Credence comes to him, late at night, when Graves is drinking a glass of scotch and looking through the newspaper, reading about the attacks.  
  
He is hurt again, his palms and fingers, his back, and Graves tends to him. Kisses the hurt away, kisses Credence’s palms, until Credence reaches for him and kisses back.  
  
“I think something is happening to me,” Credence says, later, when Graves has him wrapped up in his arms, holding him tight in bed, moonlight shining on his pale skin.  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“I feel different. Angrier.”  
  
And Graves will smile, because he won’t realize how right he is, when he says, “That’s your power, Credence. There is immense power in anger. Use it.”  
  
  
  
There are more attacks on the city in the coming weeks. When Graves is not busy trying to locate the child that is causing the harm, causing injuries and eventually will cause death, if they don’t hurry, he is with Credence.  
  
They meet in alleyways and sometimes cafes, in Uptown, where no one will recognize Credence, or Graves, because they are owned by no-majs. Graves touches Credence, his cheek, his neck, his back and knee. Credence is less free, more afraid, until they’re alone.  
  
Graves watches Credence grow bolder then, his hands wandering, touching and figuring out what Graves likes and Graves returns the favor. It's a pleasure he’s had before, but there’s something different about Credence, something more delicate and yet something unbreakable at the same time.  
  
It takes a while for Credence to be comfortable with Graves touching his scars, but eventually he arches into it, and asks for more.  
  
The night after the most destruction the Obscurial has caused and the first life is taken, Graves makes love to Credence, and looks into Credence’s eyes as he does, sees the strength and the power behind them, and he will do all he can to ensure it never leaves him again.  
  
“What’s causing everything?” Credence asks in the morning. “They say gas explosions and pipe bombs and that the mafia is behind most of it, but it’s strange, isn’t it?”  
  
“It is,” Graves agrees as he dresses for work. “Don’t worry, Credence. The city will figure it out. Stay safe when you’re out. Stay safe when you’re in,” he adds wryly.  
  
“She doesn’t hit me as much,” Credence says quietly. “I don’t know why.”  
  
“Predators can sense when someone stronger than them is realizing that they are.”  
  
Credence frowns. “Even Modesty looks at me differently.”  
  
“She’s only eight,” Graves says. “She’ll come back around.”  
  
And he will walk Credence to the church before going to MACUSA and it will be the last time he does so.  
  
  
  
Graves is informed by a junior Auror, a new hire he barely knows, that there've been multiple murders in Queens. An entire wizarding family, he says, sounding far away, and Graves thinks he will have to cope with the fact that this happens if he hopes to continue his training.  
  
He tells Graves the address and when he sees half of his team is gone, he assumes they are waiting for him there. He Apparates to the home and frowns as he looks up at it.  
  
Something about the lonely home, sitting on the corner of the street, its paint peeling from the walls, sets his teeth on edge. There is no one around, no Aurors, and the hair on the back of his neck stands on end. He pulls his wand out and barely has time to throw up a shield as a curse is aimed at him.  
  
It comes from behind the home, where there’s a thicket of dense trees, and Graves thinks about the junior Auror’s faraway voice, realizes his eyes had been glassy, and curses himself for not seeing an Imperius Curse.  
  
But he pursues anyway.  
  
It’s hard to catch a glimpse of the man that he’s dueling, but he sees white-blond hair and a long, dark coat, and something about him scares Graves.  
  
No one scares Graves, but his blood feels like ice in his veins, and he has the distinct impression that he does not have the upperhand here. He’s tempted to go back to MACUSA, to round up his team, wherever they are, to find this man and bring him in, before he can bring about a different type of destruction to New York City.  
  
Because Graves knows real power, knows when he fights against it, and he thinks, with another spike of fear, that this man is stronger than him.  
  
The curse hits him from behind, even as he puts up his shield to deflect the man’s curse in front of him.  
  
 _Stupid,_ he thinks, as he collapses heavily onto one knee, to think they were alone after all.  
  
Graves looks down at his lower abdomen, at the blood beginning to leak from it, a hole blown through his clothing, through _him,_ and bares his teeth in anger, looking up as the man walks to him. He’s been killed, he knows, that this will leave him cold and drained in just a few moments, but he lifts his wand anyway.  
  
It’s almost lazy, the way the man disarms him, and Graves sees why, he understands, when the man stops in front of him.  
  
“Thought the papers were exaggerating how ugly you are,” he grunts.  
  
Gellert Grindelwald merely smiles and lifts his wand. Graves knows that this is the end and he thinks of Credence. Thinks of his smile, steadily growing wider over the months, thinks of his eyes brightening, thinks of the power growing in him.  
  
Thinks of the way it feels when Credence kisses him, the way he sighs as Graves runs his fingers through his hair, the way he laughs when Graves nibbles his ear.  
  
But Grindelwald doesn’t kill him. He heals the wound and Graves feels an entirely different sort of fear then.  
  
Grindelwald sees it and smiles again, predator to prey. “Your purpose hasn’t been fulfilled yet, Director,” he whispers and with a flick of his wand, Graves’ world turns black.  
  
  
  
Graves wakes to pain. He recognizes the Cruciatus Curse and through it rips a scream out of him, his body and mind on fire, he knows it will not last.  
  
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel like a lifetime before the curse is broken and Graves lays on a cold, damp stone floor, gasping as he tries to regain his breath.  
  
There is very little light in here, and it smells of rotten water and something else, a familiar stench, and Graves thinks he must be under a lake somewhere. He can’t Disapparate and he senses the enchantments that are keeping his magic at bay. His hands are shackled behind him, thick chains that are already ripping his skin. He squints as he adjusts to the low lighting and sees Grindelwald walking across the room to him.  
  
Graves spits on his boot and gets it to his jaw in return.  
  
“Now, now,” Grindelwald says. “That’s beneath you.”  
  
“You’d be surprised at how little is beneath me when it comes to you.”  
  
A smile again, danger in it. Grindelwald leans down and grasps Graves’ hair tightly, hushing him when he hisses, and tears out more than is necessary for what Graves realizes now is the stench of Polyjuice Potion.  
  
“Ah,” Grindelwald says with a wider smile as he stands and goes to a cauldron bubbling in the corner. “You realize now what is going to happen.”  
  
And Graves does. Grindelwald is going to walk into MACUSA with his face and if he’s as powerful as they all say, with his memories. It won’t last long, Seraphina or Fontaine will sniff him out, but who knows what information Grindelwald will walk away with?  
  
“Do you know what I’m interested in, Director Graves?”  
  
“Go fuck yourself.”  
  
“Crass,” Grindelwald tsks. “You’ve done a poor job of tracking the Obscurial.”  
  
Graves frowns as he shifts, trying to find a more comfortable position. “What, are you going to try and find the child yourself?” he asks and huffs a laugh. “It’s uncontrollable magic.”  
  
“Controllable with the right teacher,” Grindelwald corrects and smiles as he approaches again. “Now, let’s see how much you know about this dear child.”  
  
Graves fights it. He fights it for as long as he can. He’s an expert Occlumens, but Grindelwald is an expert Legillimens and wears him down, enough to see surface thoughts. He seems to get annoyed after a while, when that’s all he gets.  
  
“I suppose there’s only one way, unless you are feeling particularly obliging?”  
  
Graves says nothing.  
  
He can’t fight what comes next.  
  
The Cruciatus Curse does last hours, on and off, wearing down Graves’ strength, both in body and mind. Wearing him down, until there is no strength left. No walls left to maintain in his mind, crumbled down to dust.  
  
Grindelwald breaks in with ease and Graves sees his life, played like a picture show across a screen. His childhood, Ilvermorny, working his way up through the ranks in MACUSA. His friendships there, with Seraphina, with Fontaine, his fondness for his newer junior Auror, Tina Goldstein.  
  
He tries to fight again, when he sees Credence, but Grindelwald explores that slowly, so Graves has no choice but to relive it, and with a dawning horror, Graves realizes Grindelwald will capitalize on his relationship with Credence.  
  
“That’s right,” Grindelwald says softly, when he pulls out of Graves’ mind. “You’ve missed it, Director. The boy has been touched by the Obscurial. He has seen the child, interacted with them.”  
  
“Don’t you fucking touch him,” Graves spits and attempts to lash out, but he cannot, the shackles only tearing his skin more.  
  
“I’m not interested in despoiling him as you have already done,” Grindelwald says. “But he will expect it.”  
  
“No,” Graves says hoarsely. “Don’t. You fucking bastard—”  
  
Grindelwald backhands him then and Graves tastes blood. And he is helpless to do anything but watch as Grindelwald moves to the cauldron and pours a glass. As he drinks it, as his features steadily morph and form into Graves’ own.  
  
He stares at his own face smirking down at him and wishes, then, that he had never met Credence. Because he will bring destruction upon him now, he will bring him further harm, he will kill Credence, eventually.  
  
“Tears,” Grindelwald whispers, when they come hot to Graves’ eyes, “good. You love him then. That makes it easier.”  
  
“When you fuck up,” Graves promises, “when you fail, I’ll be there, on that day. I’ll kill you myself.”  
  
“But Director,” Grindelwald says, in Graves’ voice, “I won’t fail. And on that day, you will long be dead. Nothing but dust in here, where no one shall find you again.”  
  
Grindelwald flicks Graves’ own wand at the cauldron, which disperses the potion into multiple flasks, and without one look back, he’s gone. A door closes behind him and inky blackness settles over the room and Graves screams and screams and screams.  
  
  
  
Graves gets weaker over the months. He loses weight, given little to eat, but enough water to stay hydrated. He had attempted to refuse both, to end Grindelwald’s game early, but the threat to Credence’s life, to his sister’s life, had been too strong, too real.  
  
He has accepted that Grindelwald has infiltrated his life successfully. Not just because he believes Grindelwald when he tells him so, but because no one comes looking for him. Because Grindelwald keeps wearing his clothes, keeps wearing his face, and tells him about his own friends, his own colleagues.  
  
Tells him about Credence and punishes him when he doesn’t listen.  
  
The only spark of joy he gets out of hearing about Credence, the only bit of pride, is when Grindelwald confides in him that he is not as perceptive to his touch as he is to Graves’. That he turns him away. That perhaps he is a Squib and recognizes the difference in magic, even if he can’t pinpoint what it is.  
  
“Your general sliminess, more likely,” Graves says, his voice hoarse from so little use.  
  
He gets backhanded again.  
  
“Do not worry, Director. They all break in time.”  
  
  
  
It must be December, Graves thinks, the last time Grindelwald comes for more of his hair. The air is frigid when the door opens and the water that steadily drips is colder whenever Graves takes a drink of it.  
  
“It will happen soon,” Grindelwald says. “Perhaps before Christmas. This may be the last time we meet, Director. My plan is nearly complete.”  
  
“Bully for you,” Graves whispers, his head leaning back against the stone wall, his eyes closed. He’s beginning to get too weak to open them anymore.  
  
“Perhaps it’s the humor that I never mastered, that makes him wary,” Grindelwald says, amused. “But he follows all the same. If we do not see each other again, Director, I bid you adieu.”  
  
Graves says nothing. He doesn’t have it in him to care anymore. To care whether he lives or dies, to care about what happens to the wizarding world, or Seraphina or his Aurors. Himself.  
  
He doesn’t give a shit about any of them.  
  
He only thinks of Credence. Credence recognizing the Graves that is with him is not quite the same. There’s immense pride burning in his chest, but it is short lived, because he knows the painful death that is so near at hand now.  
  
And when he feels sleep taking him once more, he hopes he will never wake here again. That he will awake somewhere _beyond,_ somewhere the sun shines and warms his skin, and that maybe, one day, he will see Credence there.  
  
  
  
Graves thinks he might have gotten lucky, when he opens his eyes, and sees sunlight. It hurts, though, and that doesn’t feel right. It takes a long time before he can squint enough through the light and look around at his surroundings. He’s lying on a soft bed, a hospital bed, in St Lyptus’.  
  
And he feels nothing. He doesn’t know what it means, doesn’t know what has happened, doesn’t care to. He wants to sleep again, hoping that this is the _in between,_ but a soft voice pulls him away from the comforting darkness.  
  
“Mister Graves?”  
  
Graves turns his head, slowly, because he’s been given heavy potions and everything feels weighed down, like he’s wading through water. He looks at Tina, who is sitting at his bedside, her eyes filled with tears.  
  
“Welcome back, sir.”  
  
Graves would laugh, if he could laugh anymore. He merely stares at her and he only has one question. Only one thing he cares about.  
  
“Credence?”  
  
Tina blinks a few times, her lips parting in surprise. “You knew Credence, sir? We assumed it was only… him.”  
  
“Credence,” he says more firmly.  
  
Tina swallows and looks down at her lap. “Credence… he was the Obscurial, sir, the one we were trying to find. We know when Grindelwald took your wand, so we know you were heading the investigation yourself first. Did you find Credence before you were able to tell us?”  
  
Graves hasn’t heard anything she’s said beyond _he was the Obscurial, sir._ He blinks and furrows his brow, as he tries to come to grips with that, with that absurd piece of information. Credence is too old, too… too _good,_ to have a beast like that festering in him. Graves would have felt it.  
  
Wouldn’t he?  
  
And he remembers then. Telling Credence he was powerful. Telling Credence that his mother was sensing that he realized it. Telling him to _use_ his anger. He remembers that the attacks on the city increased after each reminder.  
  
He remembers giving the order at the beginning of it all.  
  
There are tears in his eyes as he looks at Tina and asks, once more, “Credence?”  
  
Tina looks upset, but more shocked than anything, as she stares at him, as she watches the tears fall from his eyes. “He’s dead, sir. He killed no-majs and we… we had to secure the rest of the city. We didn’t want to, but Grindelwald had—”  
  
“Get out,” Graves says, and when she doesn’t move, he shouts it, _“Get out!”_  
  
Tina leaves and Graves looks at the window that’s letting in so much light. That’s warming his skin, the way it hasn’t for months, that’s breathing life back into him, in the way he doesn’t want it to.  
  
And he screams then, screams the way he hasn’t since the door first closed on him, screams until they force a potion down his throat and he can’t scream anymore.  
  
  
  
They don’t let him out of the hospital for two months. A month getting him back to strength, another month making sure his head is twisted on right. It’s not, but once his strength is back, the strength in his mind is back and he has no trouble lying.  
  
He hands in his formal resignation the day he’s let out and ignores Sera’s pleas, the way he has ignored them for two months now. If he never saw any of them again, he thinks he would be alright with that.  
  
His Healers tell him he’s angry and that it will ease in time. He will change his mind. He will go back to work and be who he was, if he can work out what has happened to him.  
  
And, he thinks, they might have even been right. That is probably exactly what would happen - he would get bored, lonely, angry at the right people, dive back into his work and hunt Grindelwald down himself. He would win then too.  
  
But that’s not what’s going to happen. Because Credence Barebone was a part of this, and the barest mention of him, when he had spoken to Seraphina, had enraged him. That she could so casually brush off a young man’s death, a young man she didn’t know, a young man she didn’t care about.  
  
Graves steps into his apartment for the first time and wanders the distantly familiar halls, touching the wood door frames and the cream-colored walls. Runs his hands over the books on the bookshelves in his office, sits on the edge of his bed in his bedroom, and thinks about the night he made love to Credence here.  
  
Wonders if Grindelwald had done the same, even if Credence knew something was different.  
  
He leaves his apartment and it will be for the last time.  
  
After two weeks, he’s sold it and everything that was in it, barring a few things. Credence’s favorite book, one of the few in his apartment that didn’t have moving pictures, a no-maj tale. His coffee carafe and the mugs that came with it, because Credence would sit with him and drink it black, and tell Graves that it was almost as bitter as him.  
  
The soft, plaid cotton blanket that Credence had fallen asleep under so many times, on his sofa.  
  
Graves hopes the rest of it burns.  
  
He moves to upstate New York, to a small town called Speculator, all no-maj. It’s on the Sacandaga River and he chooses a cottage just outside of town with a nice view of the water. It’s freezing here, blanketed in snow, but he fixes the cottage up with a few waves of his wand and gets the walls warmed.  
  
He foregoes the fashionable three-piece suits and long coats for thick flannel and trousers, boots sturdy enough to walk through the snow or over the scraggly rocks leading down to the water.  
  
The locals eye him suspiciously whenever he comes into town but they warm to him, when he buys necessities for living in the frozen north with the familiarity of someone who has done it many times before, recognizing one of their own.  
  
It would make him laugh, if he could do that anymore.  
  
He doesn’t tell anyone where he’s gone but messages do still find him occasionally. He reads Tina’s, tosses Fontaine’s and Seraphina’s, and gets the paper delivered the no-maj way, by a mail carrier.  
  
Winter rages on until nearly the end of April and the icy shores of the river slowly begin to thaw. The sun comes out, melting snow from the thick pine trees around, falling heavily all throughout the night, keeping him up until he casts a Silencing Charm.  
  
He drinks beer that’s been smuggled in with a few older men in town every Friday night and lets them believe he’s had his heart broken by a devil of a woman, which helps when they occasionally try to get him to meet their daughters. _Bitter and jaded,_ they say, nodding as they drink their beer, _only understandable._  
  
By June, some warmth has finally come to Speculator, and the sunshine begins to bake the rocks on the shore of the river, turning them white. Graves goes fishing occasionally, his body getting used to the rhythm quickly, even though he hasn’t done it in twenty years.  
  
He’s gutted, deboned and cooked dinner by hand before he remembers he hates fish, after eating it for so long, and goes to bed angry.  
  
The anger is always there, simmering beneath the surface. The grief, too, but that boils over more often. He can’t take his anger out on anything here. Used to go downstairs and duel with Fontaine when his day pissed him off enough, but there is no one around to duel with.  
  
No one around to tell _I was in love. He was beautiful, young and scared, but growing stronger, more powerful, more sure of what he deserved. I was in love and I never told him. I never meant to lead him astray, but I did, and I ruined us both. I should be dead and not him._ _  
__  
__But I was in love and let it blind me._ _  
__  
_He sleeps under the plaid blanket and drinks from the familiar, sturdy coffee mugs, and sits on his porch, reading the same book again and again, or watching birds fly low over the river, looking for the fish they’re fonder of than he is.  
  
August comes through, warmer now, and he walks through the woods and sees wildflowers and squirrels and the occasional coyote. So far removed from shoe shiners and bankers and impatient housewives dragging bow-tied children along.  
  
There is no traffic here, no city noise, no pollution, and he loves it, while hating it at the same time.  
  
He doesn’t love himself, but he thinks the hate he feels for himself is softening.  
  
On August 31st, at three in the afternoon, Graves is sitting on the last step of his porch, pulling his boots on, when he feels it.  
  
It’s magic, so powerful, so unsettling in its familiarity, in its sudden appearance, and for a moment he thinks Grindelwald has found him again. The hair on his arms stand on end and he looks out over the river before he stands, pulling his wand out, and turns to face his porch.  
  
It’s not Grindelwald.  
  
Graves stares at a black mass, swirling together, tendrils reaching out to touch his chair, the book resting on it, the wood railing of the porch, the roof covering it. The mass has flecks of red embers in it, and Graves stares, his wand falling from his hand.  
  
“Credence,” he whispers.  
  
The Obscurus shudders, the tendrils that have reached closer to him pulling back suddenly, and it seems to vibrate with anger, with suspicion.  
  
“Credence,” Graves says again and steps on to his porch, closer to this uncontrollable rage that could rip the life out of him with one touch. “Credence, please.”  
  
Slowly, steadily, the Obscurus shrinks, until the shape of a man takes its place, and the last few tendrils sink into his skin. His eyes, eerie and white, fade to brown.  
  
Credence, beautiful and whole and _alive,_ and Graves doesn’t know how it can be so. Destroyed, so thoroughly, they had said, Obscurus and man both. He is disheveled, his clothes torn in places, but his skin is unmarred and his eyes are the same, bright and focused on Graves, the way they always were.  
  
“Credence,” Graves whispers and falls to his knees, because he is not the man he used to be. “How?”  
  
Credence doesn’t step closer, but there’s pain writ across his face as he looks at Graves. “I don’t know,” he says, voice as soft and kind and wounded as Graves remembers it. “It hurt for a long time. But I was always there, drifting, blowing like a leaf in the wind through the city.” He shakes his head. “The world became clearer every day. I could reach for things… I could go to Central Park if I wanted. I touched a tree and felt its bark and knew one day I could be whole again.”  
  
“You’ve been healing,” Graves says quietly and doesn’t care that his eyes burn. “You were always so strong, Credence.”  
  
“More than either of us knew, I think,” Credence whispers. “I know the truth now. I’ve read it in the papers. The witch’s kind. But I think I knew before that.”  
  
“I’m sorry, Credence,” Graves says. “I’m sorry for what I did to you. For what I led you into. I never should have gotten so close.”  
  
Credence steps closer, nearly close enough to touch, and Graves wouldn’t mind, if Credence struck out and killed him. Thinks he would deserve it.  
  
“The papers said it was late August when he became you,” Credence whispers. “I noticed it, in small ways. I didn’t understand it, but it felt different. His touch felt strange. The way he spoke to me was different. He sounded like you, but he sounded like he was pretending it was something you’d say.”  
  
“He told me he suspected you felt the differences in our magic. That you likely had magical ancestry, to be able to do so.”  
  
Credence smiles. “Yes,” he says softly. “He told me I was a wizard, which was even more strange. Why wouldn’t you have told me that so much sooner, if you were one too?”  
  
“I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were one, Credence.”  
  
“I think it was too repressed, Mister Graves,” Credence says and steps closer, reaching out and brushing his fingertips over Graves’ jaw. “I thought you were acting strangely because you found someone else. And then you spoke of finding a child, the way you never had before, like it was an obsession. I thought maybe you didn’t care about me anymore. When he touched me, it was… it was like he was somewhere else. You were always with me when you touched me.”  
  
He shakes his head. “The strangest thing of all is what he called me.”  
  
Graves feels ill and he wants to tell Credence to stop, because he doesn’t want to hear what Grindelwald did to him, while wearing his face. But he won’t, because it’s his fault that it happened in the first place.  
  
“What did he call you?”  
  
 _“My boy,”_ Credence says and licks his lips, a nervous gesture so familiar to Graves that it makes his heart ache even more. “You never called me _boy._ You didn’t like when other people did. I started trusting you… him, a little less. We didn’t touch anymore and I let him believe it was because of how damaged I was by my mother. He didn’t bother trying after that.” Credence smiles, faintly. “You wouldn’t have let me get away with that so easily.”  
  
Graves looks at the wood below his knees and shakes his head, shame and hatred burning inside him. “You stayed with him,” he says quietly and looks at Credence again. “I don’t blame you for it,” he adds when Credence’s eyes dart away. “You trusted him less but you still thought it was me.”  
  
Credence nods and looks at Graves again, his heartache worn plainly on his face, and Graves would look away again, but he owes it to Credence to not do so. He presses his cold, trembling hand against Graves’ cheek and Graves tentatively reaches up to grasp his wrist.  
  
“I still felt safer with him than anywhere else. I didn’t trust him so much anymore, but he told me I was important. That he’d teach how to use magic. I thought that, if… if he lost interest in me, maybe he could still teach me enough that I could get away from Ma, the church, from all of it.”  
  
Credence smiles, pained.  
  
“But Ma… she made me angry. I became the Obscurus. I killed her. I killed Chastity. And he abandoned me, thinking it had been Modesty. He tried to make up for it, when he realized I was who he wanted all along, but I didn’t trust him anymore. And then I was… I was in pain, and I thought they killed me. But they didn’t. They didn’t kill me, Mister Graves.”  
  
“They didn’t,” Graves says. “You’re remarkable, Credence. I knew you had steel, but I didn’t realize how much. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you from the beginning.”  
  
“But you did,” Credence says and gently kneels in front of Graves, moving his hands to his shirt, fisting it the way he used to, whenever it got to be too much. “If I hadn’t met you, I wouldn’t have known what a good man is. I wouldn’t have known there was something different, when he came along. I would have followed him… done whatever he wanted. And you would have died.”  
  
Graves cups Credence’s cheeks, looking over his beautiful face, youthful still, but with a world wariness, the kind you get from fighting a war and coming out a survivor.  
  
“Tina said she dreamed where I was being held,” he says quietly.  
  
Credence smiles a little, closing his eyes. “I went to her and told her where I felt you were. It took me weeks to recover from that.”  
  
Graves laughs, because he is helpless against it. “I’m so sorry, Credence,” he says. “I’m so sorry for everything. I’d kill him, if I could find him.”  
  
Credence looks at Graves again. “Maybe we can, together,” he says quietly. “Maybe one day when we’re ready, we can find him and kill him.”  
  
“I’m not the same man I used to be, Credence,” Graves says. “That man was left behind in that hole in the ground.”  
  
“No,” Credence whispers. “He’s right here in front of me.”  
  
Credence kisses him then, in a way Graves never expected he would want to again, but he kisses firmly, demands to be kissed in return, and Graves can do nothing but that. He moves his arms around Credence and he holds him, solid and real and alive, and choosing Graves, choosing him all over again.  
  
When they part, it is only to stand and move inside, toeing off their shoes. Graves finds something for Credence to wear, something warmer and softer, and waits in the living room for him. He sits on the sofa and when Credence joins him, he touches the plaid blanket reverentially, pulling it up to his face and breathing in its scent, letting the soft cotton brush his cheek.  
  
Graves cannot begin to imagine what Credence has been living through, only a floating mass, gathering strength, with no one to talk to, with no comforts. He’s angry then, for feeling sorry for himself, when Credence has been alive and out there, and he hadn’t been looking for him.  
  
Credence curls up against his side and Graves wraps his arm firmly around his shoulder, resting his hand over his chest, so he might be able to feel his heart beat.  
  
“It’s beautiful here,” Credence whispers.  
  
“It is,” Graves agrees. “More beautiful now.”  
  
He feels Credence’s smile against his collar and runs his fingers through his soft, dark hair.  
  
“One day we’ll have to go back to Manhattan,” Graves says. “If we’re going to hunt him down. But I want to stay here, with you… if that’s something you want too.”  
  
“It is,” Credence says softly, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “There’s something else I want too.”  
  
Graves looks at him, as Credence pulls his head back, his eyes beautifully brown and mischievous. “What’s that?” he asks and smiles in a way he thought he never would be able to again.  
  
“I want you to make love to me,” Credence says quietly. “The way you did, before you were gone.”  
  
“You know I would,” Graves says, pained, “but I don’t want to remind you of who was there after I was gone.”  
  
Credence shakes his head. “Only you ever made love to me like that. He was too busy turning my life upside down in other ways to care why I wasn’t interested in it anymore,” he says. “It’s only ever been you, Percy.”  
  
Graves isn’t completely sure he believes Credence, when he remembers the things Grindelwald would tell him. But then, it does feel wrong to believe that man’s word over Credence’s.  
  
So he kisses Credence and takes him to the bedroom. And he makes love to him, easing into it slowly, carefully, and Credence doesn’t ask him to move any faster. It’s a quiet exploration of once familiar territory and out here, in the woods, on the shores of the Sacandaga River, there is all the time in the world.  
  
Manhattan will come one day. One day Graves will walk into MACUSA with Credence and he will tell Seraphina to reinstate him and she will. And she will apologize to Credence and she will listen to him, to everything that he knows about Grindelwald. She will give them permission to hunt him down, though they would have done so without it. But MACUSA’s support will help.  
  
And one day they will go to Europe and they will find him. One day their fates will be decided and the world will know their names.  
  
But today it is the gentle reawakening of a bond, of love, and the beginning of a journey to find their strength, burning low inside, and the beginning of a journey to recovery, and whatever ends awaits them after.

**Author's Note:**

> I promised myself I would never use that second relationship tag but here we are. I was in an angsty mood yesterday and decided to try out an established relationship before Grindelwald trope and wrote this in one sitting. I'm not a big fan of angst so this is unusual for me, but I'm pretty happy with it. I've got 35k down so far for a much happier Gradence fic so expect that at some point hah!
> 
> Huge thanks to [Erin](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/angelsallfire)!
> 
> [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/vtforpedro)


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